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By: Throwing the nuclear baby out with the fossil-fuel bathwater | ConservationBytes.com https://conservationbytes.com/2014/12/15/an-open-letter-to-environmentalists-on-nuclear-energy/#comment-90998
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 02:28:09 +0000http://conservationbytes.com/?p=15960#comment-90998[…] of Andes-to-Amazon connectivity by hydropower dams, pretty much highlights what many pragmatic environmentalists have been stressing for years — so-called ‘renewable’ technology rolled out at […]

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By: Not 100% renewable, but 0% carbon | ConservationBytes.com https://conservationbytes.com/2014/12/15/an-open-letter-to-environmentalists-on-nuclear-energy/#comment-83093
Wed, 05 Apr 2017 04:08:22 +0000http://conservationbytes.com/?p=15960#comment-83093[…] at least non-resistant, to the idea of nuclear power as part of the climate change solution. An open letter by our colleagues attests to this. In fact, every day that passes brings new evidence that we […]

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By: Martin Kral https://conservationbytes.com/2014/12/15/an-open-letter-to-environmentalists-on-nuclear-energy/#comment-80900
Sat, 02 Jul 2016 11:38:43 +0000http://conservationbytes.com/?p=15960#comment-80900Nuclear Energy should not be considered the savior of climate change. Nuclear Energy should be encourage based on it own efficiency record as per publius.

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By: publius https://conservationbytes.com/2014/12/15/an-open-letter-to-environmentalists-on-nuclear-energy/#comment-62699
Sat, 20 Dec 2014 04:47:25 +0000http://conservationbytes.com/?p=15960#comment-62699I suppose I’m at sea, here, regarding what you would call “safe”.
Let’s consider the most notable accidents which have occurred at civilian atomic power plants.
Enrico Fermi Unit 1, a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor, suffered a partial core meltdown in 1966, due essentially to development problems not uncommon to prototype units. No fatalities or injuries resulted, and the reactor was repaired and returned to revenue service.
Three Mile Island Unit 2, a pressurized water reactor, suffered a partial core meltdown in 1979, owing to a combination of design faults and operator error. No fatalities or injuries resulted, and the failed fuel was ultimately removed from the reactor, but the reactor was withdrawn from service.
Fukushima Dai-ichi Units 1, 2, and 3, all boiling-water reactors, survived undamaged through an extremely powerful earthquake in 2011, shutting down as designed when the shock hit. An extremely large tsunami, which follwed in the wake of the earthquake, drowned two plant employees and interrupted the operation of the core heat removal systems. Political and managerial interference with operating procedures then resulted in interruption of the emergency cooling procedures, with damage to the reactor cores and buildings, and a release of radioactive material to the environment small enough to be ultimately inconsequential. No injuries or fatalities due to radiation resulted, remarkably enough, in the midst of a natural disaster which killed something like twenty thousand people ; the units named, along with Unit 4, which was not fuelled at the time of the earthquake but suffered building damage due to hydrogen from Unit 3, have been written off.
Chernobyl Unit 4 suffered a partial meltdown, steam explosion, and fire in 1986, owing to egregious mishandling by the operators (violating all established doctrine) of a fundamentally defective design. Despite the lack of anything which would be recognized as a containment, and the dispersion of essentially the whole reactor inventory of volatile fission products, the number of fatalities directly attributable to the failure (inclusive of deaths from scalding, crushing, et cetera, as well as radiation exposure) is less than 100.
It has, furthermore, been pretty well established that the evacuation and other responses to the Fukushima and Chernobyl events caused much more harm than the events themselves.
In terms of fatalities and injuries per gigawatt-year, or hectares of land rendered unfit for human use, the atomic power industry has a record which is the envy of the world. How much safer does it need to be, when it’s already safer than any of the alternatives?

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By: prof.dr.Serban Valeca https://conservationbytes.com/2014/12/15/an-open-letter-to-environmentalists-on-nuclear-energy/#comment-62230
Wed, 17 Dec 2014 11:07:03 +0000http://conservationbytes.com/?p=15960#comment-62230If we take into account the latest studies on growth of urbanization factor and the need for access to electricity for another few hundred million people, it is clear that nuclear power should be part of the global energy mix by Generation 4 reactors. For this reason I support this letter.